Why is Oak Apple Day being celebrated?

All together now: “Grovely! Grovely! Grovely! And All Grovely!”

Oak Apple day is the 29th of May. On this day all English citizens used to celebrate the restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660. They HAD to celebrate it, because it was a public holiday, only removed in 1859 by the Anniversary Days Observance Act (which also removed the 5th November, Guy Fawkes Night). It is called Oak Apple Day because Charles II successfully evaded his pursuers by hiding up an oak tree, not a feat of courage that everyone would want to have commemorated publicly, but there you go.

Coincidentally, or maybe not, the villagers of Great Wishford celebrate on Oak Apple Day their ongoing right to gather green wood from the local Grovely Woods. They get up early – waking the whole village in the process – gather wood up to the prescribed maximum size, and march with sprigs of oak to Salisbury Cathedral where they perform a (slightly embarrassed) commemorative dance, are blessed by a (somewhat surprised) Vicar of the Close, and have their rights read out and affirmed with a shout of “Grovely! Grovely! Grovely! And all Grovely” inside the cathedral.

It is much more restrained than rolling a cheese down a hill, and the commercial opportunities remain unexploited.

PS There are breadstones in Great Wishford keeping a record since the year 1800 of the price of bread. The latest of these has been carved by Grays Stone Carving where I did my stone carving course.